Are we all happy bunnies? No? Then I’ll begin anyway. As I was cycling to work in my usual desultory fashion this morning I saw something rather peculiar. At the side of Parks Road, about a third of the way along, there was a pair of trousers lying in a forlorn little heap under a tree. Is there some confused resident of Oxford wandering round right now with no trousers on? Were they thrown carelessly from the open window of a speeding automobile? Did they just appear there by themselves? If one dared to put the noxious items on, would they prove to be a portal to another universe? The answers to all these and many other questions will be fully explored in our forthcoming feature, Trousers II: The Menace of Pants. No offence to our erstwhile listee amigo Stevie, mind. At what point in one’s life does one really really have to grow up? I was baking gingerbread the other day, and a friend who was visiting commented to the effect that I would make someone a great wife. Apparently sincerely, although she may just have been ripping the piss. Christ on crutches! That’s not the kind of thing you want to hear now, is it? Does anyone on the list consider themselves a grownup? Venerable David Moore? Mortgaged Casarroto? Anyone? I mean, I know (or at least think) I’ve been getting slightly more sensible (gradatim, mind) as the years have rolled by in their leafy finery, but as to maturity, hmmm. It’s probably me being a spoiled brat doing her first proper random temping job and getting ground by the daily peppermill. Ever notice that Delia Smith is incapable of saying the word “pepper” without prefixing it with “freshly ground black”? Just a thought. Now there’s a woman who knows where her towel is. Oh, does anyone have any photos that they want rid of? Grim sunburnt holiday snaps, blurry finger-over-lens tops of trees, headless weddings, whatever. I’m making an installation that requires a rather large quantity of photographs and, while my own stocks of offcuts are rather large, I could use more. Like enough to carpet a small room. So if anyone wants to become part of an exciting piece of poncy ART, hey, just let me know. Sorry for the list abuse. Ooooh, the wevver’s goigeous. I hope it stays nice for gambols in Greenwich on Sunday. I’ve been singing bits of Carmen all day. I hope this disturbing neurological twitch clears up soon, as it’s quite annoying. Tautologies: in a startling parallel with “To see and to read”, I found in a book of musical criticism which I’m reading the following gem: “Compared with [Debussy], the most abstruse compositions of Richard Strauss are as primer stories to hear and to comprehend.” Which are quite different things, as anyone who’s ever tried to spell Cszechoslovakia will appreciate. So it ain’t tautology. Which has previously been stated, but I wanted to show off my intellectual reading habits ;) The Lexicon of Musical Invective is fantastic actually, very gigglesome. Classical music critics are so rude! “Mr. Prokofiev might as well have loaded up a shotgun with several thousand notes of varying lengths and discharged them against the side of a blank wall.” Quite cheeky for 1921, I thought. Waaaah! Why can’t the Lucksmiths put out a new record or go on tour again? I’m suffering from withdrawal, despite repeated application of A Good Kind Of Nervous. Speaking of fab Australians, does anyone apart from me and some staff writer for Q have the Cardinal album? Richard Davies and Eric Matthews: the combination of slightly disturbing lyrics, peculiar tunes and mildly icky orchestration is a winner in my kitchen about teatime, let me tell you straight, ladies and gents. Matthews by himself is a wee bit directionless, although lovely, and Davies similarly is a teensy bit too challengingly skewed for the same level of listening, although top notch stuff. Curse the musical differences that drive stunning writing/performing partnerships apart! Enough waffling. Liz :x "Love without hope, as when the young birdcatcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter; So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by." Robert Graves +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+